G+ Page In One Account, YouTube In Another? No problem!

Clients often come to us with preexisting Google+ accounts that contain Google business pages and YouTube channels with content that have already been claimed. The business page and the channel are often in two separate accounts (YouTube channel in one login and a business listing in another). This setup used to be normal, an acceptable occurrence, but since the YouTube/Google+ integration in November of 2013, the standards have changed.

The new ideal setup is to have the YouTube channel of your business connected to the Plus page of your business. If an account was set up prior to the integration, it’s a matter of disconnecting the channel from the Plus page it is currently associated with(usually a personal page by default). This can be done through the YouTube account settings. Then, the channel needs to be reconnected with the Plus page of the business. However, if a channel and business page exist within two separate accounts, the process can be a bit more tedious.

Important note! It will only be possible to connect a YouTube account with the business Plus page if it is not currently connected with a Local, Social, or Brand page. A force disconnect can only be implemented for a channel associated with a personal Plus page. However, YouTube sometimes decides to provide a disconnect option for a channel, regardless of it’s nature (Local/ Social, Brand, Personal).

Step 1: Login to the account that the business is claimed in and go into "Pages" via the "Home" drop-down on the upper left-hand side of the page.

Step 2: Choose “Manage This Page” for the Plus Page from which you want to give managership to the YouTube channel.

Step 3: Go to settings from the top left-hand drop-down. Then, choose “Managers” under the “More” tab from the list of tabs across the top, and add the email address for the YouTube account as a manager for the business page you'd like the channel connected to.

Step 4: Log into the email for the account associated with the YouTube channel. Look for an email that says “Person Name invited you to become a manager of the Business Name’s Google+ page.” Click “Become a Manager” within that email.

Step 5: Now, go to YouTube’s home page from inside that YouTube channel account and you can disconnect the YouTube channel from the current profile to reconnect it to the correct one that you now manage! So first, from YouTube, click the drop-down menu at the top right and choose “YouTube Settings”

Step 7: The next screen will prompt you that you are switching to a username and disconnecting the Google+ profile. Click “Next,” to either create a temporary username for the channel or just disconnect and use the username your channel already has, then click “Done.”

Step 8: Now, when you go back to the “Youtube settings” page, you can choose to “Connect channel with Google+”

Step 9: Then select the business’ Plus page you are now a manager of and click “Next.” That's the end!

Continuation for force profile and channel disconnect:

In order to force YouTube to disconnect from a personal profile, you have to delete the Plus page associated with it (granted that you don't mind losing all the content associated with that Google+ profile) in order to release the YouTube channel.

Step 10: The first step is to make sure your YouTube channel has a "custom URL," or channel name, so that when we delete the personal profile the channel will float freely. In the event that your channel already has a username, you would not have to do this step. Go to YouTube Settings, then Advanced, then click "Create custom URL" to do this.

Step 11: Go into the Settings from the drop-down in plus.google.com

Step 12: Scroll all the way down on the Settings page, and you'll see the option to "Delete your entire Google+ profile here" where you'll click the link embedded in the word "here.”

Step 13: Note that this page lets you know that upon deletion of your profile, no Plus pages that you own will be deleted, pages you manage will still be managed by you, and your YouTube content will just be made private until you "re-enable" your channel. So, scroll down, check the required box, and click "remove selected services" to delete your profile.

Step 14: Now go to YouTube and click "Video Manager" from the settings drop-down in the top righthand corner. Skip any pop-ups that might appear, signalling you to set up a Plus page for your account. It's important that you do not let Google automatically set up a profile associated with the account before we get the channel re-enabled. Otherwise, it will automatically reconnect the channel to the personal profile (in which case you'll have to start back at Step 10).

Step 15: In the Video Manager you'll see a red banner that says, "Your YouTube channel has content but has been disabled. Enable your channel." Click "Enable your channel."

Step 16: Now you'll be taken to a page that will "Set up your channel on YouTube." It'll automatically try to set it up under the account name (under a personal page), but you should see an option under the account name that says "To use a business or other name click here." At this point you choose your business' Plus page from the list of pages in your account. Now, you've successfully connected the YouTube channel to your business page.

Step 17: When we delete the profile and force the channel to float freely, all of the videos on the channel are made private. So, you'll want to go back to the video manager, click the select all box, and make all the videos public again. Then, you're all set!

This process can be a little tricky. So, in the event you need help troubleshooting any particular issues, feel free to ask below!

Also, in the event that you either don't want to lose the content in a personal page during the deletion or need to transfer a channel from one page type to another(Brand to Local or vice versa) then you can use this Google support form to get assistance!

12 Responses to “G+ Page In One Account, YouTube In Another? No problem!”

Hi Mary, while that process works, deleting your Google+ Profile does mean that all the content posted by that profile will be lost. There is also the added risk that someone may inadvertently delete their entire Google account, rather than just their YouTube channel.

I would recommend instead making sure your YouTube channel-connected Google+ Profile is a manager of the Google+ Page you’d rather have your channel connected to, then contact YouTube support for assistance in moving your channel to your Google+ Page.

Use the official “help with Google+ on YouTube” contact form and select the “Channel connected to the wrong Google+ profile or page” option. This is the form (which is also linked from the YouTube help center):

Hey Peggy! First of all, thank you so much for being an active responder to this blog post! You’re totally correct in saying that all content posted by the profile will be lost upon deletion.

You’ll see in the last paragraph of the blog I mentioned that “in the event that you… don’t want to lose the content in a personal page” by deleting it, you can use that Google support form which you’ve also awesomely provided for other users with comments.

I probably could have elaborated on that point a little further, but the main reason I provided this step by step process is in the event that you want it done quickly/ immediately and don’t have any content you’re worried about losing on that personal plus page. Many of our clients come to us with these logins and the personal pages have no activity or followers on them(honestly most clients don’t even know these personal plus pages exist for them), so we’re not at risk of losing anything when we do force this immediate disconnect and reconnect.

Like I said in the last paragraph, the Google+ / YT support form is definitely an option for getting this done, given that you’re willing to wait to correspond with them. From personal experience, that support form has lead to amazingly helpful responses from the Google support team that can generally be quite timely(most responses occur within 24-48 hours). They do, however, require a bit of follow up and confirmation through a couple of emails back and forth before you can achieve the desired results.

So, either way works and this is just a quick way I’ve found to fix the issue. Again, thanks for your engagement and interest in the topic!!

Thanks for your reply! Just for perspective where I’m coming from, I spend a fair amount of time in the YouTube help forum helping people with account issues. Many times the person has made their situation much more complicated to sort out because they tried to fix things themselves by deleting stuff. And sometimes what they’ve done can’t be reversed. So I never recommend people delete anything unless there is no other option.

My main concern, beyond people losing their Google+ Profile content and YouTube Google+ comments (which they may not care about keeping) is that some people end up inadvertently deleting their entire Google account instead of just their Google+ Profile. As I’m sure you know, that can result in people losing everything.

To my mind it’s worth taking a couple of days to let YouTube support handle the transfer, rather than risk mucking things up.

And the other thing I wanted to mention is that I think it’s really important people have their Google+ Local/Places listings sorted out before they connect their YouTube channel to their Google+ Local page.

If a Google+ Local page is removed by Google (for example in this situation, the YouTube channel connected to that page will also be suspended and may be unrecoverable.

As Peggy said, that support team is super helpful. Also, I personally avoid deleting then re-uploading videos to a new channel if that means losing all the old video stats, views, and comments that are there.

Thanks VERY, VERY MUCH, PeggyK, for providing the link to the YouTube help form. After my own failed attempts to get our YouTube channel linked to our G+ business page, I was very frustrated. YouTube support was able to detach or channel form my personal G+ profile and connect it to our G+ business page in two days. I highly recommend this option. Thanks again for your help 🙂